


Star Wars: In Aeternum

by A_Undomiel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:26:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22321789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Undomiel/pseuds/A_Undomiel
Summary: Years have past since the day she landed on Tatooine and made a life there.She wanted to be forgotten and forget, but couldn't.Not when she lives with that constant reminder, of the man she fought and loved.That reminder has a name.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	1. On Tatooine

_ In my dream, you’re still smiling.  _

_ How could I’ve known how it would make me feel, seeing it? Feeling it?  _

_ I could scarcely believe it.  _

_ “Ben” _

_ In my dream, I can still feel your lips on mine. Velvet and warm.  _

_ I could drink of those lips forever. _

_ “Rey” _

_ In my dream, I can still feel your hand on my back, its fingers wide and spreading, like the branches of a tree, hugging me close. _

_ I could nestle in those hands, knowing I would be safe. _

_ But all of that crumbles in the next moment. I see the sparkle in your eyes turning into a dark cloud. I feel your grip falter, your hand fall limp. I see you disappear in front of me.  _

_ My heart freezes. It’s hard to breathe. The joy you gave me, I feel it rushing away from me, like water falling down a drain. _

_ And then, I hear your voice. _

_ “I’ll come back to you, sweetheart” _

“BEN”

Rey wakes up, her hair plastered against her scalp, sweat trickling down her neck. She reaches to her face and feels the tears on her cheek. She sighs, deeply, and pushes herself up until her back rests against the headboard of the bed. 

She looks at the narrow, long window above her. Still night time. All quiet. 

She lost count of how many times she had that dream. And everytime is just as painful as the first. Acceptance came easily, as if the life Force he had pushed inside flooded her soul with the push and confidence to react and escape. To flee that horrible place.

Her hand went instinctively to the hole in the shirt.  _ His _ shirt. Only when she got to her ship had she realized she was still holding tight to it, as if she was still trying to make him stay. 

Sometimes, she would allow herself to sleep wearing it. She knew that would make the dream come. And the pain. But it was a price she was willing to pay, just to feel him again, beating strongly inside her, to see him again. 

“Ben Solo,'' she whispered into the dark, calling him to appear. His ghost. The Force. Something. 

Nothing came. 

Her fingers traced the cauterized edges of the fabric caused by the fatal wound she inflicted onto him. She remembered the pain and the loss that swept her in that moment, feeling Leia letting go and him, leaving. It had been too much to bear - she had to keep something with her. She had to. 

_ “I did wanted to take your hand. Ben’s hand” _

She didn’t even paused to register his reaction. To see his scar heal. Maybe, if she had stayed, things would have been different. Maybe, if she had acknowledged that the Dark also affected her, she could have reached out and found him willing to help her. They could have defeated Palpatine together. He could have been there, beside her in their bed.

She caught the hem of the collar and pushed it above her nose, taking a deep breath. It smelled of musk and smoke. It smelled of an unsung redemption. 

She felt her chest swell with the knot of regret and was unable to contain the tears she would only allow herself dreaming. 

——-

Dawn on Tatooine.

It was a most magical hour. The twin suns would rise slowly from the east, and a gentle warmth would invade the desert, charging the wind with a sweet smell of the cactus blooms.

Rey dropped low and took out her knife to cut a wedge off one of the cactuses. It’s flesh was tangy and juicy, and she ate it eagerly. A typical start of a spring day.

She wiped the juice that dribbled down her chin, and adjusted her clothes, hugging her in the right places, but not too much that prevented her from doing her morning training, before checking the field of vaporators that was farthest from home. The route - a mix of desert stretches criss crossed by rock formations and canyons - was a familiar one, and she worked hard to keep herself on her toes.

There had been some encounters with Tusken Raiders, being that the farm ran close to the Needles. Plus,it was the start of the mating season, a dangerous time to be out in the desert. She took off her lightsaber, and flicked the dented wheel on the top: the bright yellow light emerged with the distinctive hum and vibration that still made her frill to this day. Something would jolt inside of her at the sight of the weapon, as if propelling her forward.

And that she did.

She launched the training droid and started running down the path, jumping up the small dune and then sliding down into the canyon. She wasn’t as fast as once before, or could she jump as high as when she was training on Ajan Kloss, but she was still strong and quick in reacting to danger. And so, battling the droid came relatively easy.

She did a series of long and short jumps, exercising her legs. She tumbled and rolled out with her lightsaber open, deflecting a sequence of shots fired from the small droid that continued buzzing behind her as quick as an insect. She reached a wall and had to climb quickly, forcing her harms to push up and over the ledge, and into another section of the canyon. She stopped, turned and avoided two shots with a twist of the saber, and then started running as fast as she could.

In these moments, when her mind would clear away the dreams of the night before and pushed that ever constant anxiety from her heart, that she would think of her friends. Of the hard path of bridging trust between systems, a trust lost since the times of the Republic; a path that Rose and Connix had taken up for the last ten years - the two being the closest to Leia before her demise. Of how Poe decided to find the remnants of the First Order, now scattered or causing havoc in outer rim systems, trying to secure a foothold among the crime syndicates, grasping for the power fix they wanted. 

Finn was the only one who knew where she was, besides BB-8.Upon learning of his Force sensitivity, she had worked hard to help him develop it. And although he could never be a true Jedi master, he was a fighter and used its powers well to free the remaining storm troopers, to build its own band of brothers.

Rey remembered the times when he had asked her to join them. Only to be met with silence and a smile. Her place was there now, among the ghosts of the past. The only way she had found to forget her ancestry and make peace with the world. A world that, sometimes, looked at her sideways, wondering how she could ever gotten out of Exegol. They would take vengeance if they knew of her grandfather. 

The saber flourished in Rey’s hands, quickly dancing its light right and left, pivoting and turning, deflecting each laser shot that came from the small sphere. But a foot badly placed caused her to trip and she got a shot straight to her cheek, grazing it. She cursed, loudly, before reaching to her face and feeling the warm moist of blood. 

“Damn it”

She knew that at that particular time of the year, any smell of blood could attract inconvenient visitors, but it was a risk she always took. She was deep into the final stretch of the training course, just before the open plains where her second set of vaporators was installed. The wind rushed through the galleries making the hairs on the back of her neck to stand out, despite the growing temperature. No, there was definitely something there.

Rey closed her eyes, focusing on her breathing, her heartbeat. The wind picked up around her, and for a moment she was back on top of the wreckage of the Death Star, her hand healing him. She thought of the way he looked at her, of how his breathing joined hers, the rush of confidence feeling her soul a little bit more. 

Her mind reached out: warm, cold; hope, loss; life, decay. Her mind connected with the sky, the rocks, the animals, the sand. It hovered, high above the path, above the rocks and the canyon. She opened her eyes.

“Banthas”

Which meant sand people nearby. 

The realization couldn’t have come anytime sooner. One by one, the Tusken appear on the top of the canyon, arms ready. Rey counted four, but she knew there could be more. The Tusken were waving their arms up and uttering high pitched screeches, pointing at her and then shoving one another. 

“Yeap. Too much excitement”

As the Tusken were preparing to go down the canyon to retrieve her, Rey darted down the path. The sand men shouted to one another, angry like animals, and started firing their cyclers, missing her by inches. Rey continued running, despite her ankle hurting like hell. She just wanted to go out into the open, it would be much easier to fend them off. Just a few more minutes.

Her ankle was hurting so much! Out of the corner of her eye she could see shadows moving above her. She closed her eyes and began murmuring.

_ Be with me. Be with me. Be with me. _

The mantra had helped her before, to focus and push the pain to another place, so she could endure. It was her last resort, since the aftermath of the memory was painful to carry.

_ I am with you. _

She stumbled, shocked. The last time someone had answered back she was teetering on the very edge, the Darkness spreading above, in bolts of lightning.

She didn’t see a Tuskan cutting the opening that would clear her into the plateau, just before her farm. She rammed him, and he reached for her arms, trying to restrain her. But Rey had other plans. She stomped on his foot and he shouted. She turned and punched him right in the mouth, damaging his protection. 

Her hand hurt, but it was nothing compared to the Tuskan: he was screeching in pain, trying to remove the mouthguard. Rey took the advantage to use the Force, drawing strength from her core and directing the blow straight to his head.

The Tuskan dropped to the ground in a second, not moving. 

The commotion gave time for the others to appear in front of her. Rey looked at the three men, panting. He hand shot out into her back, and the saber found its way into the palm of its master. She flicked the switch and drew out the weapon, clearly defying them to close the distance. But as the yellow light flooded the close corridor, Rey could see their mannerisms change.

She took a step forward. They took a step back. Another step forward. Two steps back.

Rey smiled and then closed the distance as swiftly as possible, running through them like they were nothing but holos. The Tusken still stood for two seconds, before collapsing to the canyon floor, their tunics drenched in blood.

The Jedi finally took a breather and collapsed to the floor, her ankle hurting like fire.She reached out and massaged it, unable to use the Force to heal herself - and little help it would be. She was not the same as she once was, that was clear.

She dragged herself out of the canyon into the open sand field. The towers of the vaporators were straight ahead, and they were full - she could see the red light blinking on the main tower. Another spring bounty, enough to last them across the hot, intrepid summer days.

Rey limped towards the large tower, the twin suns now burning bright in the morning skye. Soon it would be too hot to be out there. Rey pushed a panel on the side of the tower and punched a number into a keypad. There was some static, before a voice came through the small speaker.

“Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?”

“Mags, it's me”

“Me who?”

Rey sighed. Typical Mags. The L3 droid had been one of her first purchases with the Jawas, and she worked on it herself. A short circuit and some spill on the wrong board had tampered with its personality traits.  _ She _ was a pain, but competent and hard working.

“You know perfectly well who it is. You have to come and get me at the Jundland field. Had some run-ins with sand people”

She looked to the sand floor and here and there she could see some damage to the towers. It seemed they had shot fires and some pulled through.

“The towers are full, so bring the convoy. There’s some damage, despite the defense system you installed” she said, kicking a fried circuit board before yelping in pain. It was her bad foot.

“I can analyze your voice modulation and frequency. Are you blaming me for what happened?”

“Mags.”

“Right. Jedi can be so test…”

The call was cut off, abruptly.

_____

The moisture extraction and repair took the better part of the morning, and when they finished it was lunchtime. Rey looked at the horizon, hoping to see something, someone. The voice was still ringing in her head: was it? Was it him? Or was it just her mind wanting it to be true?

Mags stepped ninr and looked in the same direction. 

“Oh, I see...Jedis come with super vision too?”

Rey rolled her eyes and shot her with an angry look. Mags just raised her arms and proceeded to remove herself to a lightsaber-safe distance and started loading the containers. Rey entered the speeder that was parked a few feet away.

“Lead the convoy to the nearest dropping station. Make sure you get a good deal Mags, with the sand people out causing havoc, we will certainly fetch a higher price for the cargo”

Mags finished loading the containers and attaching the trailers, the switches closing with a loud CLUNK. All the while she kept mumbling in her own words, a speech that Rey couldn’t recognize. 

“What?”

The L3 droid turned to Rey and adopted a very human stace, a hand on its hip - like a mother, teaching her daughter a lesson.

“I don’t get it. All this money, season after season. We should take it and leave.”

Rey was playing with the switches, making sure there was enough power to get home.

“You know I can’t leave” she started, and then paused. She looked into the horizon again, wishing. “At least, not yet. You know that.”

Mags waved a hand, dismissing her master. For a moment, Rey thought that she had actually heard her scoff. The droid mounted the convoy’s lead engine effortlessly.

“I will be back at the farm at nightfall. Don’t go anywhere.”

Rey smiled and waved, before turning the speeder and slamming the pedal, having care to protect her bruised ankle. Her heart was racing, feeling the trepid motion of the engine and the sound of the sand blasting away at the carnage. The vaporators at the Needles had delivered far more moisture than expected, hence taking a longer time to extract. She had been away from home for too long now, something that always left her uneasy. 

She saw the familiar oval shapes in the distance, the agitation of the farm droids evident, rushing to the nearby fields. She parked the speeder and quickly exited the vehicle, rushing down the steps into the inner courtyard. 

She went into the kitchen. The pot was set nicely on top of the heater, simmering away. She went into the back room, a lounge where they would play games, read and watched the occasional report from Base. It was warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Empty. Rey started feeling a twinge of concern. 

“Where…”

She backtracked into the courtyard and into another room.

The bed was open, the sheets twisted and turned, the pillow on the floor, like someone had thrown it away. Rey bit her lower lip.

_ I didn’t ... Why haven’t I felt it? _

She looked at the bench where all sorts of materials and tools were spread. There were several drawings attached to the wall, making layer after layer of crude paper, scratched in black and red pencil. She lifted some of the front papers, revealing the earlier sketches, from four, five years ago. 

_ Ages. _

She traveled from distant, imaginary worlds. Alien species. Sketches of the droids, at work. Of Mags in some odd, funny pose. Her fingers traveled through the sheets, yellow and crinkly from the dry weather. She felt the graphyte on the top of her fingers, speaking of dreams and nightmares.

She took a step back, to look at the more recent drawings. No longer they spoke only of worlds and adventure.

She could see a rough sketch of Chewie, in one corner. Off Finn, wearing his uniform, smiling at the artist. Several lightsaber sketches. But in the other corner, a criss-cross pattern, reaching multiple papers. She could see that there were arranged, like a puzzle and one of them had fallen to the floor, next to the table. As she reached down to get it, she saw some drawings tucked in the back. 

She reached for them, took them out. Turned. And felt her stomach sink.

Red eyes. Red eyes everywhere, trapped within a dark cloud. One after the other, she flipped through the papers and felt agony gripling her insides. A despair. Until finally, there were no more red eyes. Just a face.

“Ben”

She dropped the other drawings and felt the floor moving. The lines were simple, but enough for her to recognize him immediately. A message from the beyond. Her heart felt heavy inside her chest, as if it was sinking. It was hard to breathe. 

Her fingers traced his face, his lips. It was as if he was looking right at her.

Rey quickly pushed the drawings into their hiding place and walked out the door, grabbing a pair of binoculars. She went into the small hill that was in front of the house and scanned the surrounding area, looking for a signal that could provide a clue. One of the service droids emerged from the cellar, carrying a tray with some vegetables - for the pot, off course.

“Where is the skiff?”

“Master took it”, the droid responded. It looked east, towards the mountains and pointed in an exact direction “Hunting treasure, he said”. 

As soon as the CG droid raised its arm and pointed, Rey knew where the skiff had gone too. She ran to the speeder and hopped in, leaving a cloud of sand behind her. She couldn’t press the accelerator strong enough, the pain in the ankle was pushed away with the adrenaline pumping, the Force humming in her ears.

_ Damn fool! With all the Sand people roaming about? _

Fear made the Force inside of her sing, pushing her forward. After a long stretch of desert, the terrain became more rockier until she drove into another range of canyons. She rushed down the known alleyways, some she had already used for training many times and then abandon. Because they all lead to the same place, the same hill, the same rock, the same ruin.

She looked up and, sure enough, there is the skiff, a sun-powered hovercraft that she helped to construct with salvaged parts bought to Jawas and some scavenging she had been able to do around the benders and traders near Tosche Station. The skiff is painted in a deep, rusty red and the sail glows, the energy warping the air around it.

Rey takes her saber, as a precaution, and stands by the speeder for a minute, waiting. The place still calls to her, like a beacon, since she decided to wait, to hide. But for all the times she had visited the place never once its former master appeared to her. But the calling was still there, present. A soft  _ tap, tap, tap _ in the back of her mind. 

She knew that it also called to him. It wasn’t the first time she had gone to the house, to find him there, looking for a treasure he never could find. 

Rey approached the entrance and peeked inside. The wind was blowing in from the opposite window, filling the place with sand. All the matter of contraptions and boxes were scattered, broken or open, rampaged by Jawas long gone. Whatever content was there, whatever treasures, they were probably gathering dust inside a sandcrawler somewhere waiting to be sold or were already sold.

She heard something moving in the back and she grabbed her lightsaber, toying with the switch at the top. It was hard to sense if it was him, since closing oneself from the Force was the first thing she had taught him.

Swiftly and without a noise, she hopped into the back and up the few steps that led to what had once been Obi-Wan Kenobi’s quarters. The light was dim, and she had to flick her saber open. The yellow light glowed in the confined space, which had been able to be kept relatively sand free. It seemed that there was something, right in the back, something weird.

She moved to the back wall and almost fall into a hole which had once been concealed behind the remnants of what appeared to be a shrine of some sort. But now, someone had cracked it open wide and Rey was about to fall into it. She dropped her saber low, trying to measure its depth and saw that there were some steps, carved in the wall.

It was not an easy descent, trying to keep the saber open in order to be able to see the way properly, but the hole turned out not to be too deep. She dropped down and saw a small opening, large enough for her to crawl through.

Rey emerged into what had once been Oby-Wan’s private study. There was a worn out rug in the middle of the room. An old generator and a wooden box. A niche in the wall was home to some statues and Rey could recognize one: its shape resembled Maz Kanata for some reason.

There was a workbench. Someone was sitting at the table, completely absorbed in a task of some sort: Rey could hear the clink of metal and the smell of welding.

“I knew I would find it” - his voice pierced the silent room making Rey jump. She approached the table and looked at the boy -  _ her boy _ . His black, raven hair was full of sand and bits of rock. His hands were full of small scratches and bruises. He turned and Rey felt that jolt of electricity, that gasp inside her chest, every time she was scrutinized by those big blue eyes.

He was smiling, delighted. Her ever constant reminder of Ben Solo.

_ In my dreams, you are still smiling. _

“What did you find, Jinn?” Rey asked, a slight tremor denouncing her disturbance.

He made a motion, inviting her to look over his shoulder. There, laying on top of the table was the initial stages of a lightsaber.

“Treasure” he said. 

  
  


TO BE CONTINUED

  
  
  



	2. Two

“Bed”

Jinn looked at the stern face of his mother and, as usual, remained silent. An almost imperceptible twitch in her eyes, made him realize that she was quickly going from stern to menacing. He had crossed another line, that day. There had been too many to count in the past year. First, trailing off to practice force projections with stones. The stones quickly turned into very large boulders, until he caused one to detach from a nearby mountain, crashing away part of one the neighbor's farms, costing his mother part of the Autumn harvest. And the incident at Mos Eisley, where he tried to mind bend one of the traders to convince him to give him a new thruster to his skiff only to find he was one of those species immune to it. Rey was forced to intervene, again with a hefty sum - not only to pay for the thrusters, but also the trader’s silence. 

She got up and stepped into the kitchen, placing her bowl in the sink, turning around and expecting him to follow her move. Soon, he appeared on the threshold and rather gruntly headed to the sink, dropping his cup into it with a loud clunk. 

Rey quickly moved on into the living room and from there into the back room. She opened the door and felt a pulling: her eyes were immediately drawn to the unfinished saber that rested on top of the small desk. She couldn’t help feeling something clicking inside of her, something she hadn’t felt in ages - perhaps only on Jakku. 

She walked towards the table and stopped just before touching the weapon. Would there be visions, like on Takodana? Part of her wished it so - just for a chance to see him again. Trembling, she reached for the device and her heart sank for a second upon touching the cool metal exterior. 

Disappointed, her trained fingers and scavenger gaze moved on into absorbing the information: it was still in a crude shape, made of several parts of different metals. It felt like a project someone had started and then left aside at some point. She peaked inside the side panel and, sure enough, there was a kyber crystal inside it, locked and ready. The very thing she had tried to avoid.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” 

Rey turned around, her eyes flickering. Jinn was staring at her from the door, arms crossed, leaning at the frame. Listening to him was like listening to someone ancient, and not a fifteen year old kid; like someone spoke through him. The thought made her back shiver.

Rey remembered the storm that raged on the night he was born, when she had starred him in the eye and saw something rise and then immediately fall deep into the unknown. And above it, the storm broke and a clear sky came through. A blank slate, for the both of them.

“Can’t wait to finish it”

He was sparse on words, so it was a surprise to hear the melody of an inquisitive child and the excitement of a young man in his tone. His personality was starting to sink in as well: the Solo in him overpowered his manners. The lure of the danger and of the speed. But the long silences and staring into the void...that was his father. From her he had the rest: how he would “rob” her of her tools and end up making modifications to the droids. The laugh. How he would befriend someone easily. 

But Rey could sense a tension boiling underneath. Always there, always present. Her mind went easily to the red eyes, glowing in the middle of graphite darkness. That made her scared, which led to anger. 

“I told you plenty of times  _ not _ to go there”

Jinn straightened, his arms falling to his sides. The hands stretched and then curled into fists.

“And I had told you before: I  _ felt _ something there”

She had thought nothing of it, after all it had been Obi-Wan’s place. But hearing him say it, the ghost of his future voice - deep, like his father’s - made the awakening even more real. Suddenly, the weight of the weapon in her hands also became very real. She felt the slightest tremor and winced - the crystal was reacting to his voice. 

“A lightsaber is nothing to joke about” she answered drily, placing the weapon back in its original position. She closed her eyes and tried to steady herself after the shock of knowing the crystal was, indeed, awakening. 

“I wouldn’t know. You won’t train me” he replied, with an angry, clipped, tone. 

When she turned around, Jinn had moved silently into bed, facing the wall so that he wouldn’t see his mother’s stare. Rey sat next to him, until finally she placed a hand over his shoulder, exhaling, trying to soothe the rough tension that had mounted in just a few sentences. He tensed up and then relaxed, giving in to the warmth of her touch. They stayed like that for a long time, until finally he shrugged a little and said something that Rey couldn’t understand. There was a gentle push in the Force: he was trying to hide something from her.

“Tell me” 

She thought of the drawings hidden behind his desk. Would he ever explain them?

Finally, Jinn sighed and turned up, gazing at the cracks in the ceiling and the stars he had drawn there. His eyes moved on to rest over his mother’s face: she kept watching. There were some lines around her eyes, of a long day full of work and worries. Still she kept that hopeful face, of someone always looking at the horizon, waiting. He blinked, embarrassed for not wanting to end up like her.

“I thought it would happen. He would come and...teach me”, he finally confessed, his voice cracking at the end.

Since he first learned how to crawl, Rey had found Jinn always trying to sneak into her room, thrashing things about: her bedsheets, her pillow, the clothes. One day, she found him with Ben’s shirt, holding it so tightly she had a difficult time prying it from its hands. When she finally was able to do it, Jinn began crying - the first time he had cried since he was born. 

Sobbing uncontrollably, he suddenly fought back, Force projecting Rey to the wall. She remembered the adrenaline shock and grunted, hurt. That made Jinn stop crying all together, realizing what he had done. He looked at her intently: his little hands were gripping the black fabric tight when Rey felt the boy entering her mind. She retaliated, almost automatically, and he started crying again.

As he grew older, she could feel the Force within him. A low humming at first, but becoming stronger each day, until Rey couldn’t ignore it anymore. With only the sacred texts to guide her, and what she remembered of Luke and Leia’s teachings, she began to guide him into the basics of how to defend himself. To be closed to the Force, to hide; to search with his feelings; to overcome obstacles in the terrain; to mind bend. 

But lightsaber fencing was something she had tried to avoid, much to her son’s discontent. He would throw fits every time she found him practicing and punished him with extra work. And Rey could feel his power underneath: one day, she wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Her hand moved through his black mane, so silky and smooth, like water running through her fingers. It soothed her and him in tune. 

“Jinn,” she whispered, using the Force to gently lull him to sleep “your father is with you. Always.”

His eyes shimmered, mirroring hers every time she spoke of Ben Solo, which was a rare thing. He smiled, the uneven teeth peeking through his lips, the eyelids feeling heavy. A word, caught in the precipice of sleep.

“...I know”

____

_ “There are always two: a master and an apprentice” _

Those had been Sidious parting words for him. They sank into his mind, just as the mighty Imperial Cruisers he had seen from the distance dip into oblivion, between the lightning and the explosions.

Dukol was sitting, alone, in what once had been the Sith Academy in Korriban. An empty and barren desert, home of ancient Sith Lords whose bones were now dust beneath his feet. He felt the blood of his brothers trickling down his fingers; felt the power within them, seeping into the pores of his reddish skin. 

He was wondering about the feeling that came into him, just as he slashed the final opponent. It had been sudden, as if the ground failed beneath his feet, almost causing him to trip.He had blamed it on a surge of power from the Force, but now he wasn't so certain.

He looked over his shoulder, to the black hooded figures that lay over the floor. Hands frozen, outstretched in horror, grasping for their final seconds of living. His yellow eyes moved a fraction of an inch towards the two men standing at the threshold.

“Brother” one of them uttered, bowing slightly.

Dukol turned around and got up, adjusting his holster. He felt the weapon, warm still, sitting heavy over his leg. 

“Jilat. I asked you an army and you bring me...this”

The Sith looked at the room, frowning. Too much time and effort was wasted on that floor: finding Force users, hiding from Poe Dameron, dodging the Council scouts. It had taken pillaging and killing crime lords, just to get to their slaves - Force users were, once again, shunned, rejected. Their mere existence was seen as a possible gateway for a Dark Lord return. 

“We will find what you are looking for”

Jilat stepped over the bodies, sprawled over the floor, approaching her brother. Too many years deep into the Dark Side had rendered their mark on Dukol’s face - now contorted into a glare of permanent angry agony, devoid of emotion. They had been younglings themselves when they were brought under the wing of Lord Sidious, just two among an ever growing crowd of followers, mustering within the deep caves of Exegol. 

Sidious had singled the twins out, on account of all that Korriban blood, rare and pure, within them. Brought them near him, teached them, made them help  _ him _ . The horrors of the cave had imprinted deep within Jilat. Those machines, experiments, felt like cheating the Force. But her brother embraced those horrors fully. He was the favourite, the one that would continue if all else failed.

_ “My granddaughter cannot deny her own blood, the calling of the dark side. I will be reborn again, within her!”  _

Jilat knew what Sidious had intended, in the end. That pure, Korriban blood and that pure, Palpatine blood joined into a new breed of warriors. She swallowed, drily. Suddenly, Dukol grabbed her arm and stared into her eyes, as if he had seen her thoughts. He whispered low, out of earshot of the other men, still waiting at the door.

“I have felt a disturbance in the Force”

Jilat winced, remembering the sudden jolt to her stomach that morning. It had felt like something or  _ someone _ had pushed the veil between the Son and the Daughter - between Dark and Light. But, to which direction? She couldn’t tell, so she lowered her eyes, which her brother took as a yes. 

“We have to be careful. Dameron is out there. The Brothers lurk near - we can’t stay here for long without being discovered. It has been only through our strength that we’ve been able to conceal in plain sight” 

She knew her brother like the palm of her hand. If there was the slightest chance for them to gain power, he would take it. The only thing different from Sidious was that he wasn’t as patient. It was up to her to dose down his advances.

Dukol did not care. The disturbance stirred his curiosity and he was sure it had been strong enough to be felt by the Brothers. If they were suspicious, they would move quickly. He grinned, his fingers hitching for a fight.

“Let them come”

Jilat straightened, slightly. 

“And if the disturbance is coming from the Light side?”

Dukol sighed, and Jilat felt the satisfaction of purpose entering his body.

“We will drown it in Darkness”.

_________

Rey stared at the glass in her hand, the golden liquid circling within it making her mind fly.

“Is the kid alright?”

She startled, not expecting to see Mags that late and away from her nest. The L3 droid brushed away some sand, throwing the stacks of credits into her partner’s lap. Rey looked at the plaques - it had been a good harvest that day. L3 chirped happily, sitting heavily on the couch, crossing her hands behind her head and placing her feet on the small rock table in front. Rey snorted.

“Maybe it's time to see if I can fix those personality controls” she mumbled, taking another long gulp. The liquid felt like fire in her stomach and there was a veil settling over her mind. The droid swam before her. 

“Maybe it’s time for you to  _ really _ train the boy”

Rey stared at the single red dot on the droid’s visor. Mags was silent, the red light stable, waiting for a reaction. Judgment met resentment. Rey got up and took the remaining drink in one quick motion, avoiding a reply and hoping that would fend off further inquiry. She moved to the small niche that led to the kitchen and placed the glass there, making sure not to stumble. Everything was hazy. 

But the droid would not shut up.

“Just give him what he wants. Or he will find it somewhere else”

That hit a nerve. She turned around, the drink pumping through her, fueling her anger, wanting to crush the plastoid and metal shell, to make it collapse into itself. She thought of Palpatine, smiling that dreadful smile, waiting to fall under her lightsaber. That image made her immediately recoil. Her bottom lip shook and her hands clenched and unclenched, wanting to find something else to hold on.

_ I’m here. _

“Wa...what did you say?”

Rey noticed that Mags had finally taken the feet off the table.

“I’ve seen how humans at that age behave themselves: hormones they call it...we are blessed with none of that, thanks the maker! They want to hit something, in every way possible…I like that, actually”, L3 mused before her tone became serious “He knows you are hiding. Defence alone won’t be enough. He needs to learn.”

The droid got up and the side compartment of her leg opened up to reveal her blaster, which she took in one swift motion. The weapon danced in her hands before she quickly aimed and fired a single shot. Rey reached for her lightsaber and ignited it, the yellow glow filling the room, drawing a curve with it but totally missing the blast. The glass beside her smashed into a thousand pieces and the sound it made felt like failure.

“Are you insane...droid?”

Mags straighten and quickly put the blaster away.

“Danger can come from anywhere, even from friends”

The droid stood there for a second, the red light flashing with intensity, the processor running in full capacity, computing the possibilities, the answers, the actions. Finally, she turned around and exited.

“Good night, Jedi”

Rey felt her hands numb, as she flipped the switch off and her legs gave out beneath her.

_______

Right on the edge of sleep, but still her mind would whirlwind around Mags words and the red eyes of her son’s drawings. Was the Force warning or beckoning him? Her heart twisted, angry with herself. 

“You should have let me go”, she whispered into the night, a fugitive tear escaping down her cheek.

The wind was picking up, a murmur turning into an howling; if she closed her eyes, she could almost feel like she was back on Ahch-To, the thunderous sea crashing against the rocks. The black hole calling her name, pulling her in.

_ Her destiny was set. Exegol, and the Emperor, awaited.  _

_ She held the wayfinder in her hand, gripping it out of the wreckage of Kylo Ren’s ship, and she saw the Darkness, held by a giant spider-like contraption, and the chanting echoing across a large hall. _

_ “Confronting fear is the destiny of all Jedi...”, Luke had said as he wavered away into the Force, “...of those who have been lost, and of those who have been found“.  _

_ She had wanted to be found, to be someone important. Secretly nurturing the idea that her parents had been fighters for the Resistance, hiding her away so that she could survive - their lives too perilous to bring her along. The truth was very different, and the name Palpatine felt hollow in her lips. _

_ She would go, and she would end it. Be a hero, seek the adventure on the horizon. That was all she could think off, laying on her cot, trying to sleep before the fight. The waves were pounding against the cliffs, the wind screaming against the small stone hutt, and the rain seeping through the thatched roof above her. _

_ She honed on the waves, listening to their murmur, to their humming. The sound fading away. _

_ She reached for the saber tucked beneath her pillow, and striked it open in the direction of the figure materializing across the room. Ben kept seated by the fire, unfazed by the warping sound coming out of the laser. She wasn’t expecting to see him so soon after Kef Bir, and her heart pumped wildly inside her chest.  _

_ She took every information possible to prepare the confrontation, just like Leia taught her. But what she found was not the intense glare and frown she had grown used to. His scar was gone; his cloak and shaped vest were also absent. Her eyes ran down his black long sleeved shirt, stopping at the hole on his stomach. Rey switched the lightsaber off. _

_ He took a sip from a cup he was holding. His eyes squinted while making a low rumbling sound - satisfaction? The gesture and the noise were strangers to their former interactions. She slid onto the bench opposite him, the familiarity of the scene not lost on her. _

_ “You found the wayfinder” _

_ Rey kept looking straight into the fire. She was afraid of saying too much, yet again. _

_ “You will be walking into a trap”, he pressed. There seemed to be concern in his voice,  _

_ “Leave the past behind.Kill it, if you have to.Your words.” _

_ His left eye twitched, honoring his dark past, before he took a deep breath to settle himself. He put the cup down and clasped his fingers to try conceal the fidgeting of his hands. His shoulders, however, were restless. Thankfully, it wasn’t the same hunching that Rey had been used to. He was stealing furtive glances, hesitating to speak. And so Rey took the advantage.  _

_ “I need him to know. And I need him to pay for what he did. To me and to you” she suddenly reached for his arm and squeezed it, feeling the coarse fabric brushing her hand. She could touch him, the Force allowing their physical selves to share that space. He was startled by the move, and stared at her, like a boy caught in a lie. Rey felt her heart skip faster and nodded, reassuring him.  _

_ “It’s what your mother trained me for” _

_ She took off her hand and resumed looking into the fire. For her the conversation was over, their quarrel settled. It was time to move on, to accept whatever fate was awaiting her on Exegol. All that was left was to wait for him to fade back into the Force, to become the past behind her. But still he remained. Still looking at her. No longer fidgeting. _

_ As he sat there, watching, she felt her chest swell with all the things she wanted to say but couldn’t. She couldn’t let go of her resentment, of the abandonment she felt on Jakku. The pain suffered at the hands of Unkar Plutt, of the First Order - of him. Luke’s death. Leia’s death. It was her fate all along, to be in ever constant pain and suffering and to be delusioned into believing something good would come? If there wasn’t no one waiting for her except Palpatine, then the pain would become anger and rage to be brought down over him.  _

_ “My mother would have wanted you to live, Rey” _

_ With this sentence, Ben slowly outstretched his arm and opened his hand, beckoning hers. She looked at it, saw the calluses and the deep lines, cutting away on his flesh, telling their own stories of pain and resentment. She knew those stories. Understood them. She looked in his eyes and found no trace of Kylo Ren. Only Ben Solo.  _

_ “Let me help you” _

_ Her own hands clenched over her lap, nervous.  _

_ “Please” _

_ She yearned to reach for his hand. Ben’s hand. She saw the mouth of the dark pit, roaring back at her, as her fingers slowly slid into his palm, as if they were always meant to be nested in there. She felt the same shock of electricity running down her spine; the same images as before: a bruised and battered Ben Solo, nodding in acknowledgment, before her.  _

_ But with no Luke to interrupt, the full power of their connection ran through her and him as well. Their breathing quickened, both hands now grasped, tightly. It felt like lightning, making their skin glow. His heart was beating inside hers, the taste of her mouth in his mouth. They both saw themselves in each other's minds - their real thoughts and feelings. They were an open book, one being, entwined.  _

_ His lips trembled and the eyes watered as they both felt the connection lodging into the back of their mind, permanently there like a living thing. They stared deeply into each other's eyes, unable to let go. _

_ “I knew...” his voice ragged, trying to contain the emotions running in quick succession “...the moment I touched you, everything else would fade out of existence” _

_ They acted on impulse, falling on their knees, her body nestling naturally into his.  _

_ “Tell me...you feel the same” _

_ She let go of his hands and her fingers reached for his face, stopping mere inches from his temples, trembling like leaves in the wind. She could feel his breath washing over her cheeks, feel the wanting of him rushing over her. Her fingers touched his temples and he sighed, deeply, closing his eyes in relief. _

_ “I feel the same,” she whispered. _

_ Her thumb scraped over his mouth. Ben opened his eyes, feeling her butterfly touch becoming warmer over his skin, his body responding with yearning. Again, they locked gazes, and it was like a chain being broken: their lips rushed towards one another, meeting halfway, in an urgency that only first love justifies. The hands reached awkwardly, but quickly, for fabric, cords and belts, untangling their bodies from all the restraints that prevented their skins to touch at length, wanting to feel the power of their bond fully. _

_ They stretched over the straw rug that did little to separate the damp and the cold of the rock beneath it. Their skin felt like a furnace by itself, a fever that neither could or want to abate. His lips found her neck, her hands ran through his hair, inviting him to take her. He pressed forward and pushed her towards him, making her arch her back. Pain stretched through her, turning into a flood of bitter and sweet, pulsating within. His hand came round and she felt his palm, giant, spreading over her lower back, pressing and pinning her down towards him, so he could feel her entirely. _

_ The Force was right. They were one, locked in a dance of bodies and minds.  _

_ They moaned into the wind roaring outside, not wanting to let go. They felt like gods, pulsating with life at each stroke, at each exhale, the sweat and the rain making their bodies glitter. Until Rey felt her time coming: she reached for his neck, pushing up, wanting to feel him completely inside of her, to make his thrust harder still, to complete their connection. She looked up, to the droplets coming down from the thatched roof, how they seemed like diamonds, the Force floating down to bless them both.  _

_ The appogee. The power of Life evading them both. _

_ She looked down to his face, alight with pleasure and the happiness of finding something he had been chasing his whole life. She felt the beating of his heart fading, and a gust of cold wind sweeping into her own. He took her hands and squeezed them.  _

“ _ I will meet you there. And I won’t let you go _ ” 

Rey woke up - the voice was real.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear all, here is my humble attempt to mend the Skywalker saga, for my own personal closure. I am happy to share this progress with you all, albeit it will be a slow progress, sorry about that.
> 
> So, did you enjoyed this first chapter? You know I enjoy writing adventurous stuff, so I am only getting started! Hope to hear from you!


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